It may be James Franco's last week on General Hospital, but his character still hasn't been given more than five minutes worth of airtime in a single day. Potential reasons: his tight schedule, ABC's desire to tease out his arc across as many days as possible, or maybe because the actor had a hard time not laughing through his serious takes. Proof of the latter theory after the jump.

During today's episode, Franco squared off against Port Charles' resident romantic gangster, "Sonny" Corinthos (Maurice Benard), a Brooklyn-born character so protective that he threatened to splatter Franco's brain matter against the wall for threatening Sonny's son ("You gangsters are so colorful!"). Unfortunately for both actors and for the viewers at home, it seems as though performance artiste James Franco was not ready to keep a straight face when confronted with Emmy Award-winning Benard's intensity. Or maybe this is all part of a feature film about big-time actors almost laughing (or Fallon-ing) through their soap opera scenes.

I disagree with this article. It was obvious that Franco was being sardonic with Sonny. It was what the script called for. He wasn't supposed to be intense like Sonny. Franco is a psycho and everything to him is a game why wouldn't he be laughing?
And just in case Franco was supposed to have been intense and couldn't keep a straight face -- which I don't think is the case at all - then what does it say for this supposedly very professional actor? Doesn't say much for his acting ability does it?

This non-chalant, smirking, devil may care attitude is how Franco has been in several scenes with Jason, the scenes with Ronnie, the end of his scenes with Carly (Xmas tree day) and now Sonny. He isn't about to laugh, unless he was about to laugh in all his scenes.
Let's not confuse actor and character now.

I completely agree with the above comments. This is a ridiculous, totally off base little article based on inaccurate perception and a false premise. You clearly haven't done your homework - i.e. watched enough of his scenes to observe and understand the far from obscure (i.e. obvious) essence of his character. The nonchalance, the indifference, the cockiness, the flippancy, the sardonicism, the quirkiness, and, yes, the inappropriate and unexpected smirking and smiling are all part of the personality of the Franco character he is playing! And he does it very cleverly and intriguingly.